Saturday, September 11, 2010

MIA alert

I’ll be kind of MIA over the next few weeks, though I am scheduling posts for while I’m away.

See, I’m going on a little road trip. I’ll drop off the puppy boy in Michigan and pick up my mom. Then we will cross over the bridge in Detroit and head into Canada, picking up my good friend Sharon in London, Ontario. The three of us have a week of travelling fun planned.

I won’t be online much, since I’ll be in a different country. While I might pay a bit extra for international calling and texting while I’m there, I don’t plan to pay for international data. So…no posting via my beloved iPhone. Sharon will have her laptop, so I might have to bug her a bit to let me use it from time to time. ;p

Over the past week or so, I’ve talked with my mom several times about the trip. What to take. What are we going to do. How to handle money.

That last one is something that I don’t give nearly as much thought to when I usually travel, as all of my overnight traveling has been in the US. The only time I’ve gone to another country and stayed more than a few hours was a trip to Canada when I was 9. Yeah. I didn’t even think of money then.

And on that note, here are a couple of travel tips.

International Travel Tips – Money Matters:

If traveling to a different county – like Canada (yes, Canada is a different country from USA, even if it doesn’t seem like it at times.) – it’s a good idea to contact your bank and/or credit card companies. Let them know that you may be using your account(s) while traveling and the dates of travel. They should note this information in your record so your transactions won’t be flagged as suspicious activity.

While you are talking to your financial institutions of choice, ask about rates for ATM and credit transactions. This can vary from institution to institution. The national bank that I use charges 2.25% for international credit transactions and $3.50 for international ATM transactions. The local bank is only 1% and $2.50 respectively. Guess which account I plan to use the most.